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SCO accuses IBM of destroying evidence

Infamously litigious UNIX distributor SCO now claims that it can't prove its …

Proprietary UNIX vendor SCO has produced a veritable litany of bizarre and questionable allegations since 2003 when it first brought its infamous copyright infringement suit against IBM, but the latest accusations to emerge from the ongoing SCO v. IBM case are particularly odd. In a recent filing, the Utah software company asserts that IBM intentionally destroyed evidence and deleted source code relevant to the case.

During the early days of the trial, SCO CEO Darl McBride repeatedly stated that his company had discovered "cases where there is line-by-line code in the Linux kernel that is matching up to [SCO's] UnixWare code," despite the fact that the company's own internal audit turned up nothing.

Earlier this month, SCO hit another major setback when the magistrate of a Salt Lake City District Court dismissed more than half of the company's claims, and characterized as "inexcusable" the lack of relevant evidence presented by SCO. In response, SCO has filed an objection in an attempt to get the ruling overturned. In the filing, SCO insists that depositions from IBM developers reveal that IBM ordered its Linux developers to dispose of AIX and Dynix source code.

SCO now claims that it cannot prove its allegations because of IBM's alleged destruction of evidence. SCO hasn't been able to substantiate any relevant accusations so far, and it is unlikely that the litigious software company will succeed in proving its latest improbable claims. Despite numerous setbacks and minimal chances of success, SCO continues to spend massive amounts of money in its war against Linux and IBM. According to a SCO press release, the company spent $3,762,000 on IBM litigation in the second quarter of fiscal year 2006 alone. SCO is now in the process of transitioning back towards software with a new emphasis on mobile application development, but the legal fight will continue.